NEW ORLEANS -- Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana, at the direction of Vice President George Bush's campaign chairman, compiled an explanation of how he got into the National Guard during the Vietnam War to defuse a controversy before he joins the Republican ticket today.
Questions have surfaced about Quayle about his military service record since Bush, in a surprise announcement, picked him Tuesday to be his running mate. Tonight, the Republican National Convention is expected to nominate Quayle as the party's vice presidential candidate.
Quayle, 41, has said he worked to get into the Indiana National Guard in 1969 when he was 22, a move that probably kept him out of the draft as the Vietnam War escalated. He denied that he or members of his wealthy family used political pull to get him into the guard ahead of others.
At a news conference with Bush Wednesday, he labeled questions about his service record a 'cheap shot.'
Bush campaign officials said Quayle met Wednesday and today with key operatives in the vice president's organization for 'information-gathering' sessions. At the direction of campaign Chairman James Baker, one official said, Quayle was piecing together the details of his National Guard service -- particularly, how he got into the guard.
Baker said today on ABC's 'Good Morning America' that the issue 'was explored with (Quayle). I might point out that since he has been named, he has participated in a full-blown press conference and five separate interviews with TV network anchor people answering questions.'
A senior campaign official who asked to remain unidentified maintained today that despite the flurry of reports and speculation, no second thoughts about the selection of Quayle were being expressed by Bush or his aides.
Quayle's press secretary, Jeff Nesbitt, said, 'There are so many questions that people are trying to put all the facts together. He's never really talked about this. It's never really come up.'
Recalling his discussions with Quayle, Nesbitt said, 'The only thing he told me was that he wanted to get into the National Guard and some people may have made some calls on his behalf. But after 20 years, his recollection is fuzzy.'
In response to other questions about why Quayle chose the National Guard, Nesbitt said: 'Did he want to avoid Vietnam? I don't know.'
Aides to Bush and Quayle insisted the question of military service was oneof those covered during the extensive background check carried out on the senator by Washington lawyer Robert Kimmitt, a former Treasury Department official and aide to Baker.
Today Bush heaped praise on Quayle during a visit with the Texas delegation.
'He is going to be a great vice president and I am glad to have him at my side,' Bush said. 'He is going to make a tremendous impression across this country. He will be good. Texans will like this man.
But the controversy was disturbing some delegates today. California GOP Chairman Robert Naylor said, 'I think he needs to clear up the circumstances' under which he got into the National Guard. He said it would be a 'fair statement' that in 1969, National Guard duty was considered a way of avoiding active-duty service in Vietnam.
Naylor said, 'I think he did what anybody of his influence would have done at that time.'
Rep. Robert Dornan, R-Calif., a strong advocate of the U.S. role in Vietnam, said, 'It's a pretty important question to people who are wearing the uniform. He has to clear it up. And I think he can do it. It can be done boldly and with a lot of candor and courage.'
Dornan added, 'There are people during Vietnam who were hiding in the Guard. It did happen.'
Bruce Herschensohn, a Los Angeles television commentator for KABC and a California delegate: 'If he knowingly used his influence to get out of active service, it's indefensible. I have no reason to believe it's true. I want it cleared up. He should not be on the ticket if he used his influence to get out of active duty. It looks like this story isn't going to go away.'
Republican National Committeeman Steve Roberts of Des Moines, Iowa, said, 'If the vice president finds there's anything to these reports, he should move now, put (Sen. Robert) Dole on the ticket and get it over with.'
He said Bush cannot head into the fall campaign with unresolved questions surrounding Quayle that may 'explode.'
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, in Miami, declined today to comment: 'I don't have any knowledge of it and won't address it.'
Quayle was asked Wednesday in an NBC News interview if strings were pulled to get him into the National Guard.
'Special help of any kind? I mean, I let a number of people know that I wanted to get into the National Guard,' he said. 'You're going back 20 years, and exactly 20 years ago, who I said I'd like to get into the National Guard -- phone calls were made -- I can't answer. I don't know the specifics of that.'
In an interview with Cable News Network, Quayle said that had his National Guard unit been called up for active duty, as another Indiana unit was, 'I would have gone with my unit and hopefully served with distinction in Vietnam.'
He said the fear of being killed in Vietnam was 'absolutely not' why he joined the National Guard; 'My desire was to go on to law school as soon as possible, so the National Guard allowed me to go to active duty for six months.'
An additional matter dogging Quayle has been his refusal to say exactly what he did during a two-day stay in January 1980 at a Florida beach house he shared with several other men, including three other House members, and with lobbyist Paula Parkinson, a lobbyist who later posed nude for Playboy magazine.
Parkinson, who later said she had an affair with Rep. Tom Evans, R-Del., who also shared the house, alleged she had sexual relationships with about a dozen GOP congressmen.
Evans, quoted in today's editions of The New York Times, said: 'Dan Quayle has nothing to do with Paula Parkinson. I think it's unfair to imply that he was involved with anyone.'
All Quayle said about the matter Wednesday, however, was that there 'is nothing there' regarding his two days in Florida. He was taken aback and visibly flustered when he was pressed to elaborate on Cable News Network.
'You know -- and if you don't, you should -- that thing has been thoroughly gone through and there's nothing there,' he protested.
On another point, The Washington Post reported today that in February 1982 the faculty of DePauw University, Quayle's alma mater, initially voted against giving him an honorary degree because he was a lackluster student.
'He was a very mediocre, C student,' complained Robert Sedlack, an English profesor who argued against awarding the degree to Quayle. 'All he did was play golf and popularize the fraternities.'
The vote was later reversed when the university's president, Richard Rosser, pointed out he already had offered Quayle the degree and it would embarrass the school to withhold it subsequently, the Post said.
